Topspin

The tennis star was famed for her topspin.

Well remembered as a visual comedienne, she also had the verbal knack of putting all sorts of topspin on a line.

Flashdance had a quality known as top spin, in which the casting, the concept and the look and sound of the movie all come together.

2016, Quentin Letts, "A Very English Scandal: sex, lies and a murder plot at the heart of the establishment by John Preston - review" (in Evening Standard, 28 April 2016) https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/books/a-very-english-scandal-sex-lies-and-a-murder-plot-at-the-heart-of-the-establishment-by-john-preston-a3236271.html This fluent, readable book has certainly been polished with a fair degree of what Fleet Street feature editors once called topspin: “Give it some topspin, old boy. Make the copy sing.” In this John Preston more than succeeds.

He could keep winning through attrition, with a relentless barrage of topspinning ground strokes and a tireless defense of his own side, where would-be winners go to die.